1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a video lighting apparatus and an electrode apparatus such as a battery back or the like which is for use in such lighting apparatus.
2. Description of the Prior Art
With regards to lighting apparatus operable by batteries, there is known a video lighting apparatus that can be mounted on a portable video camera which is in use. In general, when in use, such video lighting apparatus is attached to the rear portion of the video camera and a lighting unit thereof is energized at the same time that the video camera starts the recording. Also, the video lighting apparatus is miniaturized as the video camera becomes smaller.
When the video lighting apparatus attached to the rear portion of the video camera is in use, in order to illuminate an object to be picked up and which is in front of the camera, the lighting unit thereof must be projected upwardly or laterally from the video lighting apparatus body by a relatively long distance so that the light is not shielded by the video lighting apparatus body. For this reason, the lighting unit of the conventional video lighting apparatus is projected from the video lighting apparatus body by a long distance so that the whole length thereof is increased. Such long video lighting apparatus is difficult for the user to handle.
Some known video lighting apparatus is designed such that a lighting unit thereof can be detached from the video lighting apparatus body when not in use. This type of video lighting apparatus has the problem such that, when the cameraman wishes to take a picture on the spot, the cameraman will lose a shutter release opportunity because the lighting unit cannot be attached to the video lighting apparatus body immediately. This problem is not limited to the video lighting apparatus, but rather is common to lighting apparatus such as flashlights or the like that can be operated by a battery.
FIG. 1 of the accompanying drawings shows a handy video camera 1 and a battery pack 2 used as a power supply of the video camera 1 according to the prior art. As shown in FIG. 2, electrode portions 21 provided on one surface of the battery pack 2 are formed to be flat with a small depression from a surface 22 in which the battery pack 2 is brought in contact with the video camera 1. This surface 22 will be referred to as the contact surface 22 for simplicity. The reason for this is that the electrode portions 21 must be prevented from inadvertently contacting with the contact surface 22 when the video camera 1 is not in use. The contact surface 22 has an engagement recess 24 which is fitted into an engagement tab 13 (see FIG. 3) as will be described later.
Electrode portions 11 of the video camera 1 are located at the positions matched to the electrode portions 21 of the battery pack 2. The electrode portions 11 are protruded in a pin-like manner and are retractable as shown in FIG. 3. To this end, the electrode portions 11 are outwardly spring-biased by a spring-biasing force of springs (not shown) provided therein. Under the condition such that the battery pack 2 is brought in contact with the video camera 1 in the direction shown by an arrow A in FIG. 3, slid and then attached to the video camera 1 as shown in FIG. 1, the electrode portions 11 of the video camera 1 are brought in contact with the electrode portions 21 of the battery pack 2 with a pressure by a spring-biasing force of the springs (not shown), whereby the the video camera 1 and the battery pack 2 are coupled to each other reliably.
When the battery back 2 is attached to the video camera 1 in actual practice, the contact surface 22 of the battery pack 2 is brought in contact with an attaching surface 15 of the video camera 1 and moved in the lateral direction in this state (as shown by the arrow A in FIG. 3) while one side end edge 23 (see FIG. 3) of the battery back 2 is made coincident with a reference line 12 marked on the video camera 1. At this time, the retractable engagement tab 13 provided on the video camera 1 is inserted into the engagement recess 24 of the battery pack 2 by a spring-biasing force of an inside spring (not shown), thereby restricting the attachment position of the battery pack 2 on the video camera 1. Furthermore, upper and lower engagement portions (not shown) of the video camera 1 and the battery pack 2 are engaged with one another, ensuring that the battery pack 2 is positively locked to the video camera 1.
The battery pack 2 is detached from the video camera 1 as follows.
First, the engagement between the engagement tab 13 and the engagement recess 24 is released by pulling a lock releasing lever 14 unitarily formed with the engagement tab 13 of the video camera 1 in the direction shown by a broken line arrow B in FIG. 3. In this state, the battery pack 2 is moved horizontally in the direction opposite to the direction when it is attached to the video camera 1, thereby the battery pack 2 being released from the video camera 1 with ease.
A plastic carrying case is exclusively prepared for the battery pack 2 so that the cameraman can carry the battery pack 2 alone. However, in some cases such as when the cameraman lost or forgot to bring the above-mentioned plastic case, the cameraman has to carry the battery pack 2, for example, in a bag or pocket of a suit. At that time, since the electrode portions 21 are exposed in the conventional battery pack 2, a metal piece or the like accidentally lying in the back or pocket touches the two electrode portions 21 simultaneously. As a result, the metal piece is heated or dissolved in some case.
As for power supply equipments, the exposed electrode portions may be short-circuited by such a metal piece causing an excess current to flow through an electric circuit, thereby damaging the electric circuit components.